Posts

Wednesday evening included the DRC versus BOK orienteering event. A few DRC Juniors joined in, including Olive who put her training from the Saturday session into practice and was first DRC Junior on the Orange route.

Thursday Summer Athletics was another lovely sunny evening (with fresh white lines – thanks to Carly and Andrew), and some more great training on display from hurdles to shot put.

The first of our Yate Athletics sessions kicked off on Saturday with some great long jump and pull through (javelin) training. It was a hot day, but the there was a good turn out and some great technique development.

Sunday included the U14 Track and Field League event at the Prince of Wales stadium, and the DRC Juniors brought a sizeable collection of medals; well done Tom, Harry, Jack, Freddie and Harry.

Dylan represented DRC Juniors in Essex on Sunday by completing his first junior park run; he completed the course in 9:39, 8th overall and 3rd in his category, great run.

A warm May evening greeted the runners at a sold out Berkeley 10k 2018. 50 of the 422 starters were Dursley Running Club athletes. Despite the hot weather, after a rousing send off from Dave Wood the front runners started briskly.

Steve Millward of Gloucester AC led the race around the first circuit, completing the 5k loop in 16:31 as he piloted Lee Stopford of Stroud AC into Hamfield Lane for the second time. They had an ample lead on the following runners and it seemed that it would all be down to who of the two had the legs. Steve later admitted that he probably adopted the wrong tactic of front running as he was unable to break Stopford who eased past him with 600m to go and extended his lead to about 15 metres in the run in, enough to secure him the victory.

Behind this tussle Eilidh Bell representing Team Bath AC had a more comfortable race to be first woman finishing in 37:22 and looking controlled, with Dursley’s own Robin Jackson second woman in 39:05, a new personal best.

Jonny Marks was first home for Dursley in 38:12, with Nigel Sankey second in and very pleased with his personal best of 38:54 off the back of some great training runs. Margaret Johnson was second DRC woman home with a PB of 44:25 with Fran Amigoni in 3rd to complete the women’s team. Fran was picked off by Graeme Tudor who paced his finish extremely well pulling past Fran with about 25 meters to go. The club had a host of top ten age category finishers; Veronica Higgins, Audrey Harris, Claire Searle, Jim Moss, Fran Amigoni Graeme Tudor, Nigel Sankey and Jonny Marks. On the Podium along with Robyn Jackson were Kevin Jackson second in his category, Alice Lewis first F60 and Margaret Johnson first F50. The strong women’s performance saw DRC third in the women’s team race behind Almost Athletes and CLC Striders.

Ronnie Williams completed her first 10k a year after her first attempt was curtailed by the need to have her appendix removed, Kris Rymer achieved another PB, his first in the space of a month whilst Ellen Efford and Graham Wilkes , both Walk to Run Graduates also completed the race.

Special thanks go to Race Director John Rogers and all his helpers, in particular Dave Saunders and Alice Lewis, but so many other people out there making the event run smoothly. Big thanks to Matt Sherrington and Jo Turner and crew who did massages and physio after the race raising over £70 for the clubs charity! Thanks to DB max for their excellent timing service, SGS College and Hamfield for use of facilities and Skills4Life for their medical support.

The latest DRC Grand Prix series includes results from the Frenchay 10k in April and last weekends Stroud Trail Half Marathon. Also included are a couple of corrections (thanks to those who pointed them out!) and some more marathon results which shuffles the points in this category around a little.

As a reminder, marathon results must be submitted using this form for this years series. This includes the Stroud Trail Marathon. There’s been so many marathons over the past month that I’m sure there are lots of points waiting to be claimed so please don’t forget!

The Frenchay 10k and Stroud Trail Half Marathon both saw a good turn out from DRC runners in search of Grand Prix points. For those who ran but haven’t entered the series, there’s still time to do this by filling out this short form.

Pete Chaffer still hangs onto 1st place in the men’s league but now has the ominous form of Tony Wooldridge breathing down his neck. Andrew Probert has jumped into 3rd place courtesy of a good performance at Frenchay and entering his Prague Marathon result.

In the women’s league Alice Lewis continues her fantastic age grade performances and maintains a perfect record to remain on top. With only 2 more races needed to qualify for the prizes, and quite a gap already to 2nd place, Alice looks a good bet to defend her title from 2017. Annette Heylings remains in 2nd place but good runs at Frenchay and Stroud mean Julie Froggatt has now taken the 3rd spot ahead of Eileen Hieron and Caroline Jones.

No one was brave enough to take on the only ultra race in this years series, the Marlborough Downs Challenge, so some potentially easy points have been missed there. Something for runners to consider for next years series maybe…

Next up is Wotton parkrun throughout the month of June, followed by the Thornbury 10k which is full. Entries are however still open for the Westonbirt House Summer 10km in August, though I expect it will sell out before the day so don’t hang about if you need more races to qualify for the prizes!

Finally don’t forget that this years series has been extended to include the Forest of Dean Autumn Trail race due to the cancellation of the original spring race.

As always, please feel free to get in touch with Mike Crompton or Tony Freer if you have any questions on the Grand Prix, either individually or using the email address grandprix@durslingrunningclub.org.uk

Wednesday evening included a high jump session, with even the coaches having a sneaky go. Thursday evening was another great session with some endurance running, shot put, javelin and long jump training keeping everyone participating on track and field.

Saturday saw a great turn out of both club members and non-club members ready to try out orienteering. A massive thank you to the knowledgeable coaches and organisers from the Bristol Orienteering Klub (BOK). Participants had a brief warm up, followed by some instruction in how to read the maps and how to plan a route and then they were off! Our budding orienteers enjoyed the ‘dibbers’ and the challenge of finding the flags, and then to finish off some delicious cake (thank you to the cake makers too). If you are interested in getting involved in more Orienteering events, then either join us on Wednesday evening this week for another adult and junior appropriate orienteering event and/or please visit the BOK website here >>.

Back on the tracks, Freddie represented the DRC Juniors at the Gloucestershire AAA Track and Field Championship, silver in the 200m, fantastic!

Looking forward; continuing Wednesday and Thursday evening athletics sessions and on the horizon is our Yate athletics sessions. Just five weeks of athletics training, these sessions start at 2.30pm on Saturdays (19/05, 26/05, 02/06, 16/06 and 23/06) and will include some coaching from Jeremy, a high jump specialist coach. We are not asking for a registration form for these events so please do join us if you can, sessions will be suitable for any of our DRC Juniors, this is a great opportunity to train using some great facilities.

Another good turn out for yr 7+ athletics preparation for competition at Rednock, a great first Thursday Summer Athletics and a slightly hot and bothered last Muddy Running session. Many thanks to all the coaches, parents and supporters who help to make these events happen. It feels like effort paid off when we see these young athletes having fun, doing sport.

So Wednesday evening preparation for competition athletics sessions are set to continue at Rednock, and our Thursday programme runs now for 11 more weeks. This programme will finish with our very own DRC Athletics Championship event (provisionally 21st July).

Next Saturday (12th May at noon) is our one off Orienteering event; so some running around trying to find flags with electronic ‘dibbers’ in the Rednock School grounds followed by some cake. What’s not to like!

12th May is also the Gloucestershire AAA Track and Field Championships in Blackbridge so if you would like to try out your athletics skills in a competition environment this is a chance to do that. Please let Dave know if you’re interested in doing this.

We will soon be sending out some more information about our Yate athletics sessions, so watch this space but just so that you can put the dates in the diary they are 2.30pm on; 19/05, 26/05, 02/06, 16/06 and 23/06. (PS All our programme and event dates are on the Juniors page of the DRC website.)

Thank you to those who have provided feedback already about Saturdays it would be good to hear from a few more of you. You can email dursleyrunnjngclubjuniors@gmail.com or just message me.

Good luck to anyone entering the Brewer Games this weekend. Enjoy the sunny bank holiday and I will look forward to next week’s activities.

Wednesday evening saw such a great turn out the group split into two to allow for some focussed athletics training on the track and field at Rednock. Well done to our year 7+ juniors, some good training for any potential competition events.

Saturday was a mixed bag, we offered both trail running and athletics and some great training was had but numbers are low on Saturdays. So really need to hear from our junior members (and the parents) about the Saturdays.

In the calendar currently we have one more week of ‘Muddy Running’ then we have our big Orienteering event (please sign up) and then one week break before we have our Yate athletics track sessions (19/05, 26/05, 02/06, 16/06, 23/06 2.30pm).

Is there ongoing interest in Saturday sessions? What would you like to do (athletics, trail running, orienteering, cross country training, strength and conditioning, a mixture)? Would you like a break over the summer after the Yate sessions to come back in September or carry on through July/August? Would you prefer a different time?

The Thursday evening athletics programme is all planned and we are really excited and really looking forward to these – let’s hope for some great weather.

Any Kit related questions:

Some more speedy running from our Wednesday juniors at Rednock school led by Alice Lewis and Margaret Johnson. Track running 100m and 200m repeats. Well done juniors!

There was also some javelin training at the Rugby Club, what great weather to be outdoors.

Well done to Tom Smith for completing his ‘Marathon in a Month’ challenge. A break from running earned now.

Planning is going well for Summer Athletics and I will post the programme soon for all to see. We’ve bought some new training equipment (new toys!) so will look forward to using those. Nearly all spaces are gone now.

Just a reminder too that registration is open for the Orienteering Event on 12th May: